Science and Faith
At first glance, there is nothing more incompatible than these two; but what if I told you that this isn’t the case, and that the only reason why we think that way at first glance is because of the most obvious cases of the Christian church and its opinion on stem cells or whatever it is that they are opposing this week, and that this is fresh in our minds from simply watching the news. History tells us however, that the relationship between science and faith hasn’t always been a dichotomy and it does not need to be so in the ‘modern’ world. Many people criticise the Middle Ages for being a time when in Europe, science was somehow truncated by ‘faith’, I beg to differ, maybe by religion but science was still going on, people were finding out about the periodic table through alchemy, alchemy was a ‘science’ which required faith of a sort. My reason for bringing this example up is for us to stop equating faith with religion, especially established religions. Oh! Talking about established religions and this historical period, I would like to mention that in the Middle East, during the 1500’s under Islam, maths was advancing at a speedy rate, and so were astronomy and physics. Scientists are thus, not always front line atheists, this is a myth of our modern culture which for some bizarre reason, tends to demonise someone or another. For example, it is a well-known fact that Albert Einstein, one of the most quoted scientists of our time, was a religious man (a man of faith in other words) who claimed to be attempting to understand the mysteries of God through the mysteries of the Universe. Front line atheists are disillusioned people, not scientists.
Thus humanly speaking there is nothing more compatible than science and faith, even from their origins, as wonder and faith are the original motors of curiosity and thus science. Here I want to highlight how easy it is for us to psychologically move from faith to science as bearers of answers, but I also want to ask you, do not separate the two or limit your view of the answers to only one source because as I will explain, much of our faith in science is merely that, just faith. The concept of faith itself which brings belief into the table, and when there is belief, there is human spark, a natural desire to understand and reveal our world, thus science. The only reason why science and faith have been made incompatible is because of religious fanatics in all fronts and the infantile presentation of God as a being which we are supposed to fear. I am an absolute advocate of human creativity and genius, and currently it is science which is rocketing with achievements, I’m sure God wouldn’t oppose that.
My dear reader, step back and re-evaluate your current view of science. Science today is a mass of different disciplines, which rarely talk to each other and compete for funding; it is not the homogeneous searcher of truth which once was, here I am not romanticising the past, I am criticising our society’s obsession with ‘specialities’, why can’t a person do various things? We are multi-talented beings. Anyway, each branch focuses on a specific dot but never connects them. And then we hold this image of scientists, as them being very knowledgeable and dare not insult their profession, as it is a pillar to our world, almost like deities we put faith in their discoveries; or rather, on the washed down version of their discoveries that we receive from the media or the TV. Either we accept their evidence or we are too lazy to really look into anything to really understand it and wholeheartedly agree. Thus most of us basically, put our faith on science. Then there is the ‘Scientific Consensus’, which is the canon through which every scientific discovery has to go through to then become ‘socially acceptable’ and has to approve everything we are then fed as gospel, scientists of all sorts follow it, because of fear of losing prestige, jobs or funding. Here we can even draw an analogy with a religious person and say that ‘Scientism’ is a religion in itself, because science seems to require to be grounded on dogma, as religion and faith are.
Thus science today is not as free and fast progressing as we like to think it is, our society, and not only the bogey man of faith, still has barriers on it. Unfortunately most scientists nowadays work for corporations that can pay them, thus they develop new technology, drugs, food additives and others (do some research) whereas only a small percentage work for the real interest of human faith, the nature of reality and how things work. If it was my choice, I would prefer scientists to be researching our vast space not only for governments but as a way of earning a decent living, rather than expanding the battery of an I-pad. I’m not here trying to undermine the work of scientists, but I am saying that their profession like many others today, has been limited for economic purposes. We think faith is the only obstacle of science, think twice, I have presented you another one and here is another real enemy to science: old dogma. Richard Dawkins, who is a well known Philosopher, condemns any new scientific way of viewing reality, why? Doesn’t this only reduce faith on science? Although he claims to go against the dogma of religion, he views anything outside his canon, even different science, with dogmatic eyes. It’s not only faith and ignorance which limit science; false knowledge and dogma also do the job. Can you see how intrinsically linked science and faith actually are? Even in terms of language I have not been able to separate them. Have you ever seen our supposedly neighbouring galaxy Andromeda with your own eyes? I guess you haven’t, thus your knowing of it is almost as having faith in its existence.
Real scientists who seek truth and understanding in science work with faith and marvel to nature, they don’t need the fancy titles and or to be attached to corporations, like so many brains that have been bought into pseudo-scientific work. I say science and faith do go together, in order to work outside the boxes that otherwise suffocate the zest of human enquiry, scientific and philosophical. For today my dear reader, I want to ask you to do something, do a little research into some edge cutting science and research the ‘electric universe’, this new scientific discoveries with regards to the nature of our reality is fun, refreshing, interesting and it definitely requires that you expand, question or work with your: faith.
By Eliza Veretilo
